BRITISH MUSEUM. 335 
number comprised under the separate items marked 
there being no less than 19,272. Nineteen thousand 
of these, in all probability, have perished, either from 
the imperfect manner in which they were prepared, 
or from the neglect which accompanied a long period 
of indifference, in the former conservators, to their 
proper custody. It is very probable that the leg of 
that extinct bird, the dodo, already adverted to, and 
now forming the greatest curiosity in the ornitholo- 
gical department, is one of the Sloanean relics. This 
noble basis having been laid, successive donations 
and purchases were added, and successive losses 
were suffered, as zeal or supineness on the part of 
succeeding curators predominated. This state of 
things continued until the appointment of Dr. Leach, 
a naturalist whose ability was only equalled by his 
zeal, and whose health eventually fell a sacrifice to 
incessant labour. Well do we remember the time 
when he set to work manfully in cleaning out what 
was then an Augean stable—a chaos of “ confusion 
worse confounded.” But the effects of long years 
of misrule and of disorder were not to be overcome 
by a single individual, who, while he was stopping 
the plague in one quarter, was necessitated to permit 
its full rage in another. Duties which, to be per- 
formed, would have required the activity of five or 
six naturalists, were imposed upon one; the task 
was Herculean, and, as his friends foresaw, he sunk 
under their burthen. 
(236.) Whether this lamentable circumstance 
forced conviction upon the trustees, that the zoolo- 
gical department required augmentation, or whether 
the opening of the Continent, by showing us the 
